9/5/2013-Boxed In

Bob Englehart

President Obama’s “red line” is a monumental blunder right up there with President George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” stunt on the USS Abraham Lincoln flight deck. Now, Obama’s trying to weasel out of his diplomatic mistake. He said on the radio that he didn’t impose a red line, that the world did. Baloney. Own your mistake, Mr. President. Own your red line.

And for the record, I’m opposed to intervening in the Syrian civil war. I’m opposed to intervening in any of the Arab and Muslim religious sectarian conflicts. Their madness will become our madness the way Iraq did. There has been only one war in the 21st century that justified American involvement and that’s Afghanistan. Bush botched it early on by focusing on Iraq, but when we were able to get our act together, our forces whacked bin Laden in neighboring Pakistan in a brilliant nighttime raid. We should’ve left Afghanistan the next day.